On the Semantics of somemore in Colloquial Singapore English · 2020. 5. 30. · discourse markers...
Transcript of On the Semantics of somemore in Colloquial Singapore English · 2020. 5. 30. · discourse markers...
On the Semantics of somemore in Colloquial
Singapore English
Tan Yan Er
An Honours Thesis submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English Language
Department of English language and Literature
National University of Singapore
13 April 2020
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This Honours Thesis represents my own work and due acknowledgement is given whenever
information is derived from other sources. No part of this Honours Thesis has been or is
being concurrently submitted for any other qualification at any other university.
Signed ……...…………
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor A/P Michael Yoshitaka
Erlewine for his constant encouragement, dedication, and guidance throughout this thesis. His
comments and insights have been most invaluable, and his willingness to give his time so
generously has been very much appreciated.
I thank A/P Hiramoto Mie and her team for graciously sharing their corpus data with me,
without which the research would not have been as fruitful.
To my family, thank you for your constant support throughout this time. Thank you, Yuan
Ting, for taking the time to look through my drafts despite your busy schedule, and for being
a source of emotional support.
I would like to thank my friends for their help with grammatical judgements for this paper,
particularly, Aaron, and Yu Liang, for never tiring of my endless requests for judgements. To
Shu Xin, thank you for the friendship and moral support throughout this period.
Finally, to Jerry, thank you for always encouraging me and being a wonderful soundboard for
my ideas.
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CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... iii
CONTENTS .............................................................................................................................. iv
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... v
OVERVIEW .............................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1
1.2 “Some more” in Standard English ................................................................................................. 3
1.3 Discourse Markers and Discourse Coherence .............................................................................. 5
DATA AND METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................... 8
2.1 Research Questions ...................................................................................................................... 8
2.2 Data Sources ................................................................................................................................. 8
2.3 Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 10
BRIEF SYNTAX OF SOMEMORE ........................................................................................ 11
FRAMEWORK........................................................................................................................ 13
4.1 Questions Under Discussion and the meaning of somemore ..................................................... 13
ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................................. 16
5.1 The use of somemore in conversations ...................................................................................... 16
5.2 Somemore must attach to a proposition that supports a point ................................................. 18
5.3 The somemore-proposition must have an antecedent .............................................................. 20
5.3.1 Sentiment Alignment ........................................................................................................... 22
5.4 Implicit points and questions ...................................................................................................... 25
5.5 Section Summary ........................................................................................................................ 28
CONSTRAINTS ON THE ANTECEDENT ........................................................................... 29
6.1 The antecedent must be in the active context ........................................................................... 29
6.2 Sentence type of the antecedent ............................................................................................... 34
6.3 Non-linguistic antecedents ......................................................................................................... 35
SOMEMORE AND MOREOVER .......................................................................................... 38
7.1 Similarities ................................................................................................................................... 38
7.2 Reflecting speaker’s attitude ...................................................................................................... 40
7.3 The motivation behind somemore .............................................................................................. 45
LIMITATIONS OF STUDY ................................................................................................... 46
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................ 48
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 51
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ABSTRACT
While discourse particles remain to be one of the most studied features of Colloquial
Singapore English (CSE), discourse markers have yet to receive the same amount of
attention. This paper focuses on somemore, a yet unaddressed discourse marker of CSE and
aims to formalise the semantics of somemore. Using the QUD framework, I analyse the
felicity conditions necessary for the use of somemore and the necessary constraints on its
antecedent. I argue that somemore is a rhetorical device used to convince hearers to believe a
point that the speaker is making by answering a QUD raised in conversation.
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OVERVIEW
1.1 Introduction
For many years, the study of Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) have been mainly centred
around its collection of discourse particles, arguably one of the most prominent and defining
features of CSE. These particles possess various discourse-pragmatic functions, from
reflecting a speaker’s attitude to contributing to discourse coherence (Smakman and
Wagenaar, 2013) and typically occupy clause-final positions (Hiramoto, 2015).
Hitherto, most of the scholarly attention of CSE have been devoted to the study of particles
such as lah, leh and meh to name a few (Gupta, 1992; Wee, 2002), and focuses on defining
the various discourse-pragmatic functions that they possess. On the other hand, the use of
discourse markers in Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) has not received as much attention
as the well-known discourse particles of CSE.
One such discourse marker that has yet to be studied is the word somemore, a word that is
often used in informal settings and conversations. Despite its prevalent use in daily life, its
meaning and functions have yet to receive proper attention. An example of a use of
somemore is provided below:
(1) Context: B stays far from school and has been considering skipping his next lecture.
A: Are you planning on going for the lecture tomorrow?
B: No, is too boring already. 8am in the morning somemore, cannot la.
‘No, the lecture’s too boring to attend. Moreover, it’s at 8am in the morning, there’s
no way I’ll make it.’
A similar phrase “some more” exists in Standard English and is also observed in CSE.
However, they exhibit very distinct functions and meanings, suggesting that they are not the
same word. Although Bao (1995: 182) argues that words in Standard English may end up
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adopting grammatical and pragmatic functions similar to other particles found in the local
languages of Singapore due to the contact linguistic situation in Singapore, the meaning and
function exhibited by somemore is completely different from “some more”, suggesting that a
somemore is motivated from a different place.
Instead, as seen in the translation of somemore in the example above, a closer equivalent to
somemore seems to be the discourse marker moreover, which would suggest that somemore
is a discourse marker that contributes to discourse coherence. However, this also raises the
question of why would somemore in CSE be developed if there already exists a word
providing a similar function.
In this paper, I propose a formalisation of the semantics of somemore by providing an
account of the use of somemore and the various felicity conditions necessary for its use in
conversations. I argue that somemore is an additive discourse marker used in answering sub-
questions to support a certain point being made by a speaker. Next, I present the set of
limitations on the antecedent of somemore that must be fulfilled for a proposition to act as an
antecedent to somemore.
I first begin with a brief discussion of discourse coherence and the role of discourse markers
in establishing and maintaining coherence to establish some background on the types of
discourse markers used in Standard English, and what are the various ways they contribute
discourse coherence. Next, I present an overview framework that will be used in analysing
the use of somemore.
After the analysis on the felicity conditions of somemore and its antecedent, I compare
somemore with moreover to understand if they have the same function and meaning and
attempt to explain the motivations behind the emergence of somemore in CSE despite the
available alternatives in Standard English.
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1.2 “Some more” in Standard English
As mentioned, the phrase “some more” is also used in CSE. This section compares the use of
“some more” and somemore and shows that although they are spelled and sound exactly the
same, they are two different words.
In Standard English, Collin’s Dictionary lists “some more” as a phrase indicating that
something continues to occur for a further period of time, while the Longman Dictionary
describes it as meaning “an additional number or amount of something”. The other common
definition that was provided of “some more” referred to a certain snack popular in the United
States, which is not relevant to the examples and has no place in this discussion.
The following examples provided by Collin’s Dictionary show how “some more” might be
used:
(2) a. It is time for some more scurrilous gossip.
b. We walked some more.
In the data collected, similar uses of “some more” in CSE were observed as well. (3) shows
some instances of “some more” from CoSEM:
(3) a. Must "train" some more with your dad and her isit?
‘Do you have to “train” some more with your dad and her?’
b. Got some more meanings I think but Idk how say yet.
‘There are some more meanings I think, but I don’t know how to describe them
yet.’
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This is quite clearly different from somemore, as mentioned earlier in example (1):
(1) No, is too boring already. 8am in the morning somemore, cannot la.
‘No, the lecture’s too boring to attend. Moreover, it’s at 8am in the morning, there’s
no way I’ll make it.’
However, while they seem to have very distinct functions, there is a sense that they are
related in the way both words express a sort of ‘addition’ to the unit they modify, such as an
additional amount of something in the case of “some more”, and an additional point in the
case of somemore. This suggests that “some more” and somemore are polysemous words,
having related but different meanings.
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1.3 Discourse Markers and Discourse Coherence
Before delving into the analysis of somemore, I will embark on a brief discussion on
coherence and discourse markers and how these reflect rhetorical relations between parts of
speech. This section aims to establish some background on the types of discourse markers in
Standard English and their importance in discourse coherence.
The notion discourse coherence is a widely discussed topic in Linguistics and many studies
have focused on the relation between discourse markers and how it contributes to discourse
coherence. In this paper, I take the term ‘coherent’ to mean that different parts of discourse fit
together “so that it is clear and easy to understand” (Sinclair, Fox, Bullen and Manning,
1987:265).
Coherence is a dynamic process between interlocutors that helps them make sense of what is
being said (Schiffrin, 1987: 49). It is not an inherent property of discourse but must be
established through meaningful links between different parts of discourse (Lenk, 1995). Lenk
(1998) suggests that conversational coherence is achieved through an “ongoing process of
‘negotiation’ of coherence” where participants mutually attempt to influence the other
participant’s understanding of the conversation through verbal contributions that establish
rhetorical relations in the conversation.
Rhetorical relations define and characterise the type of relationships between different parts
of discourse and are partially responsible for the perceived coherence of a discourse/text (Das
and Taboada, 2018). To reflect these relations and guide hearers to recognise them, speakers
utilise various discourse markers to organise and structure parts of discourse together (Lenk,
1998). Several different labels are used to refer to the lexical expressions used to establish
and indicate rhetorical relations between parts of discourse, including discourse markers,
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discourse connectives, discourse operators, and linking adverbials (Fraser, 1999; Liu, 2008),
but I will adopt use of the label discourse markers.
There are several ways of expressing rhetorical relations between parts of discourse. Halliday
and Hasan (1976) classify them into four main categories: additive, adversative, causal, and
sequential. Additive discourse markers present new information added into the discourse and
generally consists of three sub-categories: emphatic, appositional and comparative. Examples
of discourse markers that express additive relations are moreover and in other words.
Adversative discourse markers indicate that the relation between parts of discourse is
“contrary to expectation” (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 250), where what follows the marker is
a proposition contrary to the hearer’s expectation. There are four subcategories under this
relation: proper adversative, contrastive, correction and dismissal. Examples of discourse
markers that express adversative relations are however and instead.
Causal discourse markers express relations of cause and effect of both true cases and logical
inferences. The two subcategories under this relation are general causal and causal
conditional. Examples of such discourse markers are therefore and in that case.
Lastly, sequential discourse markers concern temporal relations either in real-time or
sequential relations in a text. Examples of such discourse markers include ‘then’, ‘finally’.
On top of categorising the discourse markers by their function, Lenk (1998) suggests that
they can also be divided by the level of coherence they build in discourse, such as on a local
or global coherence level. Discourse markers that signal relations between immediately
adjacent parts of discourse function on a local coherence level (Schiffrin, 1987: 31), and
markers that signal relationships to other segments of a discourse such as earlier topics
preceding the immediately adjacent parts function on a global coherence level. An example
that Lenk (1998) provides is ‘however’, which can close digressions of interactional
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significance to the conversation and signal a return to a previous topic that occurred before
the digression.
These categories provide a brief overview of the way discourse markers are grouped in
existing literature, which provides some background for this paper in understanding where
somemore would fit as a discourse marker.
As will be discussed in later sections, the function of somemore behaves very similarly to the
discourse markers in Standard English, and as such, the term discourse marker will be used to
refer to it. However, as it is not the purpose of this study to determine whether somemore is a
discourse particle or a discourse marker, but rather to establish the semantics of somemore, I
leave the possibility open that it can be considered one or the other, or both.
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DATA AND METHODOLOGY
2.1 Research Questions
The aim of this study is to explore the meaning of somemore in Colloquial Singapore English
(CSE) and formalise its felicity conditions.
Based on the aim of the study, the following research questions were addressed to facilitate
the analysis of somemore:
1) What is the meaning contributed by somemore to a sentence?
2) What are the conditions required for somemore to be used felicitously?
3) What are the constraints on the antecedents of somemore?
2.2 Data Sources
For this particular study of somemore, primary data was extracted from WhatsApp
conversations – an instant messaging smartphone application, real life conversation, and
native speaker judgements of constructed examples.
Majority of the data obtained from WhatsApp was taken from the Corpus of Singapore
English Messages (CoSEM), which comprises of electronic message from various WhatsApp
chats dating 2012 to 2014. Additional data were obtained from the author’s personal
WhatsApp chatlogs dating 2019 to 2020.
As WhatsApp is Singapore’s most popular and frequently used instant messaging
application1, this resource provides access to natural and unmoderated occurrences of CSE
words. Moreover, texts share similar features with naturally occurring conversations, and
hence the analysis of the use of words text discourse can be extended to real life as well. Such
1 4 million out of 5.75 million people in Singapore report WhatsApp as their most used messaging app according to an article from www.messengerpeople.com
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naturally occurring interactions also allow for rich interpretations to be made during analysis
and are also free from the observer’s paradox given that the conversations preceded its
compilation.
In addition to WhatsApp data, some real-life conversations with the use of somemore were
also noted down shortly after the token’s occurrence, and permission for the use of it in this
study was sought for after that. These conversations and native speaker judgements of
constructed examples helped inspire the constructed examples used in this paper. All
examples featured in this paper are constructed unless otherwise stated. Semantically
unacceptable examples will be marked with a hex symbol (#). These judgements were based
on my intuition as a native speaker of CSE, and in the event of uncertainty, judgements of
other native speakers of 23 – 27 years old were consulted as well.
308 instances of the token somemore were extracted from the chat conversations in total. As
text messaging is known for the use of abbreviations and non-standard spellings (De Jonge
and Kemp, 2012) several possible spelling iterations were considered when extracting
examples from the chat conversations. These include “somemore” “some more”, “summore”
and “sum more”.
For the purpose of this study, the spelling convention “somemore” will be adopted to refer to
the token of interest, given that majority of the instances utilised this particular spelling,
while the spelling “some more” will be used to refer to the standard use of the phrase.
Out of the 308 instances, 74 were deemed as standard uses of the word and were excluded
from analysis of the token in this study. Standard uses of the word includes its use in phrases
such as “take some more pictures” and “train some more with your father”, which will be
further elaborated on in the next section.
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The table below shows the breakdown of the spelling variations noted and their use in
standard or non-standard English.
Somemore Some more Summore Sum more Total
Standard 54 19 1 0 74
Non-
Standard
181 48 4 1 234
2.3 Methodology
Non-standard examples were extracted and sorted into the different patterns of use of
somemore for comparison to identify any different or common semantic uses and its role in
the conversation. The surrounding utterances were also extracted along with the examples to
provide a clearer context of the token’s occurrence. Overall, while there seemed to be varying
patterns, a clear semantic use was observed. In all instances, somemore was attached to a
proposition that was related to providing reasons in the conversation.
However, as the data from CoSEM did not record any demographic information of the
speakers, this poses a potential obstacle, as age and ethnicity may have an influence over the
participant’s texting and word choices (Tagg, 2012). As such, the dataset was not suitable for
any kind of sociolinguistic analyses. Nonetheless, since the main aim of the study is to
analyse the semantics of somemore, the lack of demographic information will not impact the
results of this study.
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BRIEF SYNTAX OF SOMEMORE
There are two attested positions of somemore in a clause; in the clause-initial position and
clause-final position. In almost all the instances, somemore can occur in either position
without any change in meaning of the sentence. For example:
(5) Clause-initial: Oh ya sia, somemore y'all no food!
Clause-final: Oh ya sia, y’all no food somemore!
‘Oh yeah, moreover, you all had no food!’
However, it cannot occur inside a clause that it is modifying.
(6) *Oh ya sia, y’all somemore no food!
‘Oh yeah, moreover, you all had no food!’
Changing the position of somemore in the data from clause-initial to clause-final and vice-
versa did not result in any significant change in meaning at all, and there were no patterns
observed in when one position might be used over the other. Speakers that were consulted
mostly indicated that they normally favoured one position over the other as a personal
preference but confirmed that they did not usually differentiate it otherwise.
Of the two, one position seems more favoured over the other in the data collected. In total,
only 24% of the instances occurred in the clause-initial position while the remaining 76%
occurred in the clause-final position. While a corpus study of British and American English
words showed that discourse markers in conversation occur in the sentence-initial position
with the highest frequency (Hirst, 2001), somemore displays an opposite preference for the
clause-final position. This reflects the observation made that particles and certain adverbs in
Asian Englishes have a much higher tendency to occur in the clause-final or sentence-final
position as opposed to sentence-initial or sentence-medial position (Hiramoto, 2015).
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As almost all instances of somemore in the data collected could occur in either clause-initial
or clause-final position without a change in truth-conditions or meaning, I will assume that
there are no significant semantic differences between them for the purposes of this paper and
provide both occurrences in every example in the rest of my analysis.
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FRAMEWORK
In this section, I provide a brief overview of the framework that will be used in the sections
that follow and introduce the proposed meaning of somemore.
4.1 Questions Under Discussion and the meaning of somemore
For this analysis, I adopt the use of the Questions Under Discussion (QUD) framework by
Roberts (2012) to characterise the semantics of somemore.
The QUD framework proposes a method of pragmatic analysis by treating discourse as
structured around conversational questions and the strategies to achieve them. In this
framework, the primary goal of discourse is to reach a shared understanding of the world, that
is, to share information about the way things are.
This is achieved by asking and answering questions in discourse. Most semantic analyses
since Hamblin (1973) regard a question as denoting a set of propositions which are possible
answers to the question. In conversation, interlocutors raise explicit questions, as topics of
discussion, or implicit, related questions are pursued by interlocutors. If the other
interlocutors do not explicitly take issue with a question as invalid, it then becomes the
immediate question under discussion (QUD) that they will seek to answer. If the previous
question is unresolved, it still remains as a possible topic of discussion and interlocutors can
choose to return to it if they wish to.
The goal of communal inquiry is seen as a question itself, known as the Big Question: “What
is the way things are?” and as such, the main goal of discourse is to answer the Big Question.
Interlocutors employ strategies of inquiry, which are sequences of questions designed to
satisfy the goal of discourse. A reasonable strategy would involve breaking down the main
goal into sub-goals that are easier to achieve and logically related to each other in a way that
facilitates answering the Big Question.
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Roberts (2012) defines an entailment relation on questions as “one interrogative q1 entails
another q2 iff every proposition that answers q1 answers q2 as well”. For example, the
question “What do you like?” (q1) entails the question “What food do you like?” (q2) since an
answer to the second question also answers the first question. Similarly, the answer to any
possible question also answers to the Big Question since it informs us about what is the way
things are. Where questions have such a relation with each other, q1 is known as the super-
question and q2, the sub-question. If enough sub-questions are answered, there will eventually
be enough information to answer the super-question. Büring (2003: 513) terms the super-
question and the sub-questions that belong to it a strategy.
The set of questions under discussion at any point in a discourse is called the QUD stack,
modelled using a push-down store. The QUD stack consists an ordered set of all the
unanswered but answerable, accepted questions. When interlocutors accept a question, it is
added to the top of the stack. The questions that is on the very top of the stack will be the
immediate QUD.
If sub-questions are asked in the course of pursuing an already accepted question, it will also
be added to the top of the stack such that the stack reflects a strategy designed to facilitate
answering a super-question. When the question is answered or deemed no longer answerable,
it is removed from the stack.
To represent the structure of QUDs, Büring (2003: 516) proposes the structure of discourse-
trees (or d-trees) to reflect the super-questions and sub-questions in a given discourse. Each
node in the tree is called a move and represents a declarative or interrogative sentence.
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Using this framework, I propose that somemore is an additive discourse particle that attaches
to a proposition that expresses an additional reason to believe a previous proposition. That is,
if the speaker wishes to convince the hearer of a certain point, the clause somemore B
presupposes a previous proposition A, and both A and B are reasons to believe the point being
made.
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ANALYSIS
This section aims to outline the use of somemore in conversations and propose the conditions
that must be met for the use of somemore to be felicitous. For this analysis the QUD
framework introduced in the previous section will be used in characterising the said
conditions of somemore.
5.1 The use of somemore in conversations
Somemore functions primarily as an additive, emphatic discourse marker. An additive
discourse marker involves additional information to a discourse, and an emphatic discourse
marker implies that the added information is implied to be taken in conjunction with a
previously mentioned proposition (Holbrook, 2013).
Typically, somemore is used in conversations where the speaker is trying to support a point
that he is trying to make by providing a list of reasons why the hearer should believe the
point. First, there exists a proposition that the speaker is trying to convince the hearer of. This
will be referred to as the ‘point’ the speaker is making. This point could either be an answer
to an existing QUD in the conversation or a proposition unrelated to any existing QUD and
can be implicit.
After hearing the point, either the speaker or the hearer can raise a new QUD with regards to
the point. The new QUD will take the form of “Why should I believe the point?” where
answering it would support the point that the speaker is making. This QUD can be raised
implicitly.
To answer the new QUD, the speaker then asserts a proposition A, which will thereafter be
known as the antecedent. The antecedent expresses a reason to believe the point. Then, the
speaker asserts a proposition B that also answers the new QUD and is a proposition which he
believes to be more noteworthy than the antecedent. To indicate this belief and indicate that
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proposition is another answer to the QUD to be taken in conjunction with the antecedent, the
speaker modifies proposition B with somemore. Both the antecedent and the somemore-
proposition express reasons to convince the hearer to believe the point.
The structure of conversations with somemore is provided below for ease of reference:
Structure of conversations with somemore
Let the proposition that the speaker is trying to convince the hearer of be the ‘point’.
This raises a QUD of “Why should I believe the point?” Both the point and the QUD
may be implicit.
The speaker asserts proposition A (the antecedent) as an answer to the QUD. A is a
reason to believe the point.
The speaker asserts another proposition B as an answer to the same QUD the
antecedent answers, which he believes to be more noteworthy than A. B is also a
reason to the point. The speaker indicates B as the additional and more noteworthy
reason by modifying it with somemore. This proposition is referred to as the
somemore-proposition.
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5.2 Somemore must attach to a proposition that supports a point
One condition of somemore is that its prejacent must express a proposition that supports the
point being made by the speaker. (7a) provides an example illustrating this:
(7) a. A: Tonight want watch movie?
B: Cannot.
‘No, I can’t.’
A: Why not?
B: I got school tomorrow. {Somemore} 8am class {somemore}.
‘I’ve got school tomorrow, and moreover, it’s at 8am.’
In (7a), A introduces a QUD, “Tonight want watch movie?” which B replies that he is unable
to. This question represents a super-question in the discourse, and the response (“Cannot”)
will be the point that B is making and later trying to support.
Presumably unconvinced by B’s answer, A follows up with a sub-question, “Why not?” This
is the QUD raised with the intention to support the point B is making. B provides answers
with two reasons: 1) B has school the next day, 2) B has an 8am class the next day. These two
propositions represent reasons to support the point B is making that he cannot accept A’s
invitation to watch a movie by providing an inference that B has to sleep earlier to prepare for
school.
In (7a), somemore marks the second reason as an additional reason answering the same QUD
as the antecedent and highlights it as the reason that carries more weight in supporting his
response. (7a) is an example of how somemore is used in a conversation a rhetorical device to
connect the somemore-proposition with the antecedent as answers to the same QUD.
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The discourse tree (or d-tree) for (7a) is as shown below:
If the somemore-proposition does not support the point, then the use of somemore will
become infelicitous. For example:
(7) b. A: Tonight want watch movie?
B: Cannot.
A: Why not?
B: # I got school tomorrow. {Somemore} evening class {somemore}.
‘No, I can’t. I’ve got school tomorrow, and moreover, it’s an evening class.’
Although the somemore is modifying the correct proposition in terms of its position, the
somemore-proposition does not support the point being made. Although it is possible that B
has something related to his class to do, the proposition that B has an evening class has no
inferable implication that it has to do anything that would interfere with watching a movie,
unlike the somemore-proposition in (7a). As such, it cannot be used with somemore.
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5.3 The somemore-proposition must have an antecedent
The somemore-proposition is also unable to stand alone as the sole response to the QUD
being raised. The infelicity of somemore in examples (7c) and (7d) provide support that
somemore is an additive discourse particle; it is only felicitous in contexts where it is adding
on information to an antecedent and can neither introduce the first or the sole reason in
response to the QUD.
(7) c. A: Tonight want watch movie?
B: Cannot.
A: Why not?
B: # {Somemore} I got school tomorrow {somemore}. And it’s at 8am.
‘Moreover, I’ve got school tomorrow, and it’s at 8am.’
d. A: Tonight want watch movie?
B: Cannot.
A: Why not?
B: # {Somemore} I got school tomorrow {somemore}.
‘I’ve got school tomorrow.’
Hence, although the somemore-proposition supports the point and answers the sub-question
raised, it requires an antecedent to be modified by somemore which neither (7c) nor (7d) has.
As such, the use of somemore is infelicitous, and we can gather that the use of somemore
requires the existence of an antecedent.
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This necessarily means that both the antecedent and somemore-proposition must answer the
same QUD, otherwise, there would be no antecedent available. Consider the following
example:
(7) e. A: Tonight want watch movie?
B: Cannot.
‘No, I can’t.’
A: Why not? Don’t you like movies?
B: # Yeah I like movies but{somemore} I got school tomorrow {somemore}.
‘Yeah, I like the movies, but I’ve got school tomorrow.’
Example (7e) shows an example where the first proposition in B’s utterance and the
somemore-proposition are answering two different QUDs raised in response to the point
“Cannot”. As such, there is only one answer to the QUD “Why not?”, which is the
somemore-proposition, which as the previous examples have shown, is unacceptable.
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5.3.1 Sentiment Alignment
A possible epiphenomenon of having the somemore-proposition and its antecedent supporting
the same point is that both propositions exhibit a tendency to align in the sentiments the
convey. That is, the antecedent expressing a positive proposition is likely to be followed by a
somemore-proposition expressing a positive proposition, and an antecedent expressing a
negative proposition is likely to be followed by a somemore-proposition expressing a
negative proposition. Example (8) from the CoSEM demonstrates this tendency:
(8) Context: A is waiting for a bus to get to her examination venue
A: Where is the busssss omg
B: In the round and round
‘In the roundabout.’
A: Hurry up sia I scared I late lor
‘Hurry up! I’m worried I’ll be late.’
B: Good luck for exams!
A: Shit la so many students somemore
‘Shit. There’re so many students here (at the bus-stop) as well.’
In (8), the point “Hurry up!” raises an implicit QUD, “Why does A want the bus to hurry
up?” A provides two reasons to this: 1) A is worried that she’ll be late for the exam, 2) The
bus-stop is getting crowded with students, which would make boarding the bus difficult.
There is an understanding here that faster the bus arrives, the lesser students there will be
waiting to board the bus.
The first proposition, the antecedent, carries a negative sentiment as it contains the word
‘worry’, which has a negative connotation to it. The somemore-proposition also carries a
negative sentiment with A’s use of swear words (‘shit’) expressing frustration. We can see
23
that both the antecedent and somemore-proposition express similar sentiments as each other
in this example.
Another example from CoSEM shows a similar pattern:
(9) Context: It is 8.40am and A has just started work for the day
A: Tiring
B: hehe you just started work
B: jiayou :) lunch time at 12. 2 hour lunch somemore
‘Keep going! Lunch time is at 12pm. Moreover, it’s a 2 hour lunch.’
In (9), B tries to cheer A with a common Chinese phrase of encouragement ‘jiayou’2. This
raises an implicit QUD of “Why does B believe A should be encouraged?” B provides two
reasons: 1) Lunch time is in a few hours at 12pm, 2) A has a two-hour lunch that day.
The first proposition, the antecedent, expresses a positive sentiment, as most would associate
lunch time as a positive event. The second proposition, the somemore-proposition, also
expresses a positive sentiment, as a longer lunch break is also usually favoured by most, and
while lunch breaks are usually around an hour, A has a two-hour lunchbreak. Similarly, both
the antecedent and somemore-proposition in example (9) express sentiments that align with
each other in supporting the point.
These examples show a tendency for the antecedent and somemore-proposition to express
sentiments that are aligned in a negative-negative or positive-positive way. The reason behind
this observation can be attributed to the point that the antecedent and somemore-proposition
supports.
2 Jiayou: A phrase of Hong Kong English origin meaning expressing encouragement or incitement of support.
24
Since the QUD that the antecedent and somemore-proposition answers the question, “Why
(the point)?”, if the point is of a certain sentiment, it would naturally follow that the answers
supporting that point would be of the same sentiment as well.
Hence, in example (8) as A’s desire for the bus to hurry up comes from a place of frustration,
the point itself expresses a negative sentiment, the reasons supporting the point naturally
stems from a similar place. Similarly, since the point in example (9) is positive, being a
phrase of encouragement, the reasons supporting the encouragement would express positive
sentiments as well.
25
5.4 Implicit points and questions
As seen in the previous section, somemore can attach to a proposition responding to an
explicit QUD. However, these questions are can also be implicit and triggered by the
utterance of the point, especially where follow-up questions are usual, such as when declining
invitations. In situations like this, the QUD that the antecedent and somemore-proposition
responds to need not be explicit. (10a) provides an example of a case where the QUD raised
is implicit.
(10) a. A: Tonight want watch movie?
B: Cannot. I got school tomorrow. {Somemore} 8am class {somemore}.
‘No, I can’t. I’ve got school tomorrow, and moreover, it’s at 8am.’
In (10a), B answers the first QUD, which A asks explicitly: “Tonight want watch movie?”.
B’s answer “Cannot,” taken to be the point, raises an implicit sub-question “Why can’t you
go to the movies tonight?”. The implicit question here is raised as people often follow up
with a why-question when declining invitations. B anticipates this question and answers it
without any explicit direction. The use of somemore is not impacted as it is still answering
the same QUD as the antecedent and expressing a proposition in support of the point.
26
In some cases, the point itself may be implicit as well. Consider example (11) below. B’s
response to A’s question seemingly contains only two parts: 1) The antecedent expressing
that bread was delicious, 2) the somemore-proposition expressing that the auntie gave B some
free tissue.
(11) Context: A and B discuss the bread that B has just eaten.
A: How was the bread?
B: It was delicious. {Somemore} The auntie still give me free tissue {somemore}!
‘It was delicious. The auntie even gave me some free tissue!’
There does not seem to be a point being made, unlike the previous examples shown so far.
However, since the somemore-proposition cannot express the first answer to the QUD, the
proposition “It was delicious” must be acting as the antecedent to the somemore-proposition.
This leads us to believe that the point being supported is implicit.
At first glance, the somemore-proposition does not seem to be answering the same QUD as
the antecedent as well. The proposition “The auntie still give me free tissue” does not answer
the question about the bread. While this seems to be in violation of the requirement of
somemore, the felicitous use of somemore here suggests that B has inferred that the question
“How was the bread?” to really mean “How was the bread-buying experience?” Since B’s
response “It was delicious” indicates that a positive attitude towards the whole experience,
we can assume that the point being made here is, “The bread-buying experience was good.”
Following the proposed structure, this then raises an implicit question, “Why should I believe
that the bread-buying experience good?” which B answers with 1) It was delicious, 2) The
auntie gave B some free tissue. Now, it is clearer that both the antecedent and somemore-
27
proposition are answering the same QUD in support of the point that the bread-buying
experience was good.
For a more visual representation, the d-tree below illustrates the discourse in (11):
Hence, although the antecedent and somemore-proposition don’t seem like they answer the
same QUD, if we infer the question “How was the bread” to be indicative of a broader, more
general question, it becomes evident that the antecedent and somemore-proposition are
answering the same QUD. This example shows that although the point being supported and
the QUD “Why should I believe the point?” are necessary for the use of somemore to be
felicitous, they are not always explicit in conversation and can be left unverbalized without
affecting the felicity of somemore.
28
5.5 Section Summary
This section has proposed the felicity conditions of the use of somemore in conversations. For
the use of somemore to be felicitous, there must first be a point for the somemore-proposition
to support. The point can be either implicit or explicit. A QUD “Why should I believe the
point?” is then raised, either explicitly or implicitly, with the intention that answering the
question will convince the hearer to believe the point. Both the antecedent and the somemore-
proposition must answer the QUD and support the point being made, and the somemore-
proposition cannot be the first answer provided to the QUD.
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CONSTRAINTS ON THE ANTECEDENT
Previously in the description of somemore’s felicity conditions, I argued that there must exist
an antecedent for the use of somemore to be felicitous and suggested that both the antecedent
and somemore-proposition had to answer the same QUD for somemore to be felicitous. This
suggests that not just any preceding utterance to the somemore-proposition can constitute as
an antecedent, and that there are certain constraints involved.
Here, I take a closer look at the antecedent and describe what the constraints on the
antecedent are. I propose that there are the following constraints on the antecedent:
1) The antecedent must be available in the active context of the conversation
2) The antecedent can only be of a declarative or exclamative sentence type.
6.1 The antecedent must be in the active context
One observation about the antecedent is that it cannot occur too far away from somemore.
Although most examples shown have antecedents immediately preceding the somemore-
proposition, in conversations, it is also observed that some distance can be tolerated between
them. However, how far a distance between the antecedent and somemore is considered too
far to be felicitous is not always consistent.
Kripke (2009) made a similar observation regarding the requirements for the additive too to
be felicitously used. He noted that without an appropriate context, the use of too becomes
confusing for the hearer. For example:
(12) Sam is having dinner in New York tonight, too.
The use of too in (12) appears to introduce a presupposition that someone other than Sam is
having dinner in New York tonight. Kripke argues that this presupposition is too weak. He
argues that since a sentence is considered appropriate so long as its presuppositions are
30
fulfilled, then (12) would be appropriate in almost any context: many people would be having
dinner in New York on any given night, and by that sense, (12) should be appropriate since
the presupposition is fulfilled. However, if a hearer were to hear (12) out of the blue without
any context, the speaker of (12) is quite likely to be met with some confusion from the hearer.
He then argued that for too to be used appropriately in conversation, there must be a certain
context available, and introduced the notion active versus passive context. The active context
consists of a set of questions, topics or assertions that have been explicitly mentioned in
conversation, is on people’s minds, known to be on people’s minds, or highly salient in some
way. The passive context consists of general background information that is available to
speakers, but not deemed as relevant or on their minds. He proposes that too must refer to a
parallel proposition from the active context, and not from the passive context. Looking at
(12), too must refer to an antecedent proposition parallel to Sam having dinner in New York,
for example, perhaps information that a mutual friend of the speaker and the hearer, John, is
having dinner in New York on the same night.
If we adopt this distinction between the active and passive context, it becomes much easier to
understand what is considered tolerable distance between the antecedent and somemore. I
suggest that this distance is not governed by the number of utterances intervening between
the antecedent and the somemore-proposition, but rather by the presence of the antecedent in
the active context.
31
Consider a constructed example (13) where the antecedent is bolded:
(13) Context: A and B took a train to meet C. On the way there, B showed A a picture.
1 C: How’d you come here today?
2 A: We took the MRT.
3 B: Ya and we had to stand the whole way
4 C: Damn that sucks.
5 A: Eh by the way, the picture you mentioned just now, can send me?
6 B: Oh sure
7 C: What picture?
8 B: I show you. Here, sent.
9 A: Thanks.
10 B: Oh and the train was so crowded somemore, damn bad.
Here, a small side conversation (lines 5 – 9) intervenes between the antecedent and the
somemore-proposition. The speakers that were consulted found accepted the use of somemore
is as felicitous in this conversation.
32
Now consider (14) below where the side conversation is longer. Similarly, the antecedent is
bolded:
(14) Context: A and B took a train to meet C. On the way there, B showed A a picture.
1 C: How’d you come here today?
2 A: We took the MRT.
3 B: Ya and we had to stand the whole way
4 C: Damn that sucks.
5 A: Eh by the way, the picture you mentioned just now, can send me?
6 B: Oh sure
7 C: What picture?
8 B: I show you. Here, sent.
10 A: Thanks.
11 C: The picture quite nice leh, take from where one?
12 B: At the park near my house there. That day the sunset quite nice then
somehow managed to take until not bad.
13 C: Not bad, not bad.
14 B: # Thank you, thank you. Oh and the train was so crowded somemore, damn
bad.
For this example, most speakers that were consulted found the use of somemore in this
conversation to be infelicitous. In (14), the side conversation is longer (lines 5-13), which
33
makes the distance between the antecedent (bolded in the example above) and the somemore-
proposition too far for the use of somemore to be felicitous.
The difference between (13) and (14), where somemore is felicitous in (13) but not (14), can
be attributed to the context that the antecedent exists in. Here I refer to Kripke’s (2009)
notion of active versus passive context. In (13), it is likely that the utterance of the antecedent
is still fresh in the interlocutors’ minds and thus still in the active context of the conversation
even after the interruption by the side conversation. Moreover, the side conversation is
resolved very quickly, within 5 lines, which increases the likelihood of the antecedent
remaining in the active context.
On the other hand, in (14), the side conversation is significantly longer compared to (13).
Furthermore, C introduces another topic in line 11 which would shift the focus of the
conversation further away from the previous topic. As such, the information of the previous
topic would have become much less salient and shifted to the passive context of the
conversation.
From this, we can see that somemore does not require the position of the antecedent to
immediately precede it, but to be in the active context of the conversation and be highly
salient in the interlocutors’ minds. If the intervening conversations pick up prominence in the
conversation, it is less likely that the antecedent will remain salient in the interlocutors’
minds and more likely to be shifted into the passive context.
34
6.2 Sentence type of the antecedent
Not all types of utterances can function as antecedents to the somemore-proposition. There
are four main sentence types to consider: declarative, interrogative, exclamative and
imperative. The antecedent of somemore can be supplied by declaratives and exclamatives,
but not in interrogatives or imperatives.
Most of the examples in this study have antecedents that are declaratives or exclamatives.
Below are some examples containing declaratives or exclamatives as the antecedent of the
somemore-proposition. The antecedents in the examples have been bolded, and their sentence
type included in brackets below.
(15) I got school tomorrow. {Somemore} 8am class {somemore}. (Declarative)
‘I can’t watch the movie tonight. I have school tomorrow. Moreover, it’s at 8am.’
(16) I hate doing homework! {Somemore} so difficult {somemore}. (Exclamative)
‘I hate doing homework! Moreover, it’s so difficult.’
On the other hand, antecedents in the imperative or interrogative form are unacceptable.
(17) # Eat your medicine. {Somemore} you must eat it on time {somemore}. (Imperative)
# ‘Eat your medicine and, eat it on time!’
(18) # Did you eat the salad? {Somemore} the salad taste quite good {somemore}.
(Interrogative)
‘Did you eat the salad? The salad tastes great.’
Considering that the antecedent must also answer some QUD, it is not surprising that it
cannot be of the sentence type imperative or interrogative, since these sentence types do not
generally function to answer questions, while declaratives and exclamatives do.
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6.3 Non-linguistic antecedents
Although the antecedent is usually clear in most situations, there are examples where the
antecedent is not as apparent. This usually occurs where something visual or pictorial is
involved. However, these are not exceptions to the constraints described and a closer look at
them show that they ultimately still comply with the structure and constraints mentioned.
The following is an example taken from personal electronic message data, where the
antecedent seems to be a visual, rather than linguistic. The omitted media below is a
screenshot of an online search result of the definition of the word ‘orthopaedic’, and the
search results featured both English and Chinese definitions.
(19) a. Context: A and B discuss the meaning of ‘orthopaedic’. Neither of them is
sure of its meaning.
A: Where got bone!!!
A: This one is muscle one no?
B: LOL
B: idk
B: he xray me
B: then he refer me
A: <Media omitted>
A: SUSS 3culture: rely on search engines
A: HAHAHAHAHAHA
3 SUSS: Singapore University of Social Sciences
36
A: WAH GOT CHINESE SOMEMORE I IS IMPRASS
‘Wow! There’s even the Chinese definition of the word (in the search results),
I’m impressed!
In (19a), the somemore-proposition is “Wah got Chinese”. However, the propositions
immediately preceding it, although, linguistic, are not its antecedents. This is evident from
that if they were to be removed, the use of somemore would still be felicitous, as seen in
(19b).
(19) b. A: <Media omitted>
A: WAH GOT CHINESE SOMEMORE I IS IMPRASS
‘Wow! There’s even the Chinese definition of the word (in the search results),
I’m impressed!
As the somemore-proposition discusses the image, it can be inferred that the presentation of
the image is the topic of conversation. However, the antecedent is not the image itself, but
what can be inferred from the image.
When showing someone a picture or image, it is generally understood that there is something
significant in the picture that a person wants the person being shown the image to see. We
can think of this as the point that the person is trying to make. Following the structure of the
use of somemore, this raises the question, “Why should I believe that the picture is
significant?” In (19a), this question is raised implicitly after A sends the image to B.
As mentioned in the context earlier, neither A nor B are certain of the meaning of the word
‘orthopaedic’. Thus, when showed a picture of the search results of the meaning of
‘orthopaedic’, is it very easily understandable that the picture is significant because it
resolves uncertainty on hand. Hence, the antecedent can be inferred from the contents of the
37
picture as “The picture resolves an uncertainty A and B has by providing a definition of the
word ‘orthopaedic’.” A also believes that there is one more reason the picture is significant:
that the search results provided a Chinese definition of ‘orthopaedic’ as well. This was
realised with somemore.
The full utterance of the point, the antecedent and somemore is likely as follows, with the
unverbalized part of the utterance in brackets:
(20) A: (I think this picture is significant! The picture resolves an uncertainty A and B has
by providing a definition of the word ‘orthopaedic’.) WAH GOT CHINESE
SOMEMORE I IS IMPRASS
The point that A is convincing B of is that the picture is significant, which raises the QUD
“Why should I believe that the picture is significant?” A provides two reasons: 1) The picture
resolves an uncertainty A and B has by providing a definition of the word ‘orthopaedic’, 2)
There is a Chinese definition provided. Although not much is given other than the somemore-
proposition, the structure of somemore still follows and the constraints of the antecedent are
complied with, it was in the active context of the conversation and of a declarative sentence
type.
38
SOMEMORE AND MOREOVER
So far, I have discussed the function of somemore, felicity conditions of somemore and
limitations on its antecedent. In the various translations provided for the examples, moreover
has been used as the closest equivalent in Standard English. Indeed, they perform very similar
roles in discourse, and on the surface would seem to differ only in their formality and domain
of use; somemore being in spoken, informal conversation, and moreover being in written,
formal discourse. However, a further comparison shows that there is a subtle difference
between the two.
In this section, I first discuss the similarities between somemore and moreover. Following
that, I show that there is a subtle difference between somemore and moreover and suggest
why the use of somemore would emerge despite the available alternative in Standard English.
7.1 Similarities
Before delving into the differences, I discuss the similarities between somemore and
moreover. Both somemore and moreover also contribute to coherence in dialogue in similar
ways. Like somemore, moreover is a cohesive device that links different parts discourse
together to signal an additive relation to its antecedent. That is, moreover indicates that its
prejacent expresses an additional reason in a list of reasons that supports the same argument
(Liu, 2008). The following is the dictionary entry of moreover from the Oxford English
Dictionary (OED):
Moreover
At the beginning of a clause, or parenthetically within one, indicating that it contains
matter additional to what has already been stated (often preceded by and, sometimes
by but): besides, furthermore; what is more.
39
They are also interchangeable in most contexts without a difference in the meaning
expressed, as illustrated in (21):
(21) It's too late to go out now. Moreover, it's starting to rain.
It’s too late to go out now. {Somemore} It’s going to rain soon {somemore}.
Logically, both examples entail the same two propositions, it’s too late to go out now and it’s
starting to rain and conveys a similar rhetorical relation between them. However, as the next
section will discuss, native speakers of CSE perceive a slight difference between the two
examples.
40
7.2 Reflecting speaker’s attitude
Although somemore and moreover perform similar functions in most contexts, is a difference
between the two beyond their difference in formality. The following examples will show that
somemore is able to reflect a speaker’s attitudes while moreover does not through the
emphasis placed on the prejacent of somemore.
While the both of them introduce additional reasons supporting an argument, somemore
reflects that the proposition being expressed is considered more noteworthy to the speaker.
(22), an example from the CoSEM, illustrates this:
(22) a. A: Buy some desserts from Orchard
A:
A: Some macaroons pls
B: Eat the peanuts mummy bought la. Cannot find macaroons.
‘Eat the peanuts that Mummy bought instead. I can’t find the macaroons.’
B: Somemore too sweet and expensive
‘Moreover, they’re too sweet and expensive.’
In (22a), B rejects A’s request to buy some desserts for her and lists two reasons for her
rejection: 1) She is unable to find any macaroons to buy, 2) They are too sweet and
expensive. Based on the judgements and intuitions of the native speakers that I have
consulted, somemore indicates to the interlocutor that its prejacent matters more to the
speaker than its antecedent (going to school by accident). Furthermore, if propositions in the
antecedent and the somemore-proposition are switched around, the intuitions are switched
accordingly as well.
41
(22) b. A: Buy some desserts from Orchard
A:
A: Some macaroons pls
B: Eat the peanuts mummy bought la. Macaroons too sweet and expensive.
B: Somemore cannot find
‘Moreover, I can’t find them.
In (22b), native speakers that were consulted reported that the proposition ‘cannot find’ is
more of note to the speaker in supporting why she rejected A’s request instead of the
proposition ‘macaroons are too sweet and expensive’, which was the case in (22a).
As the use of somemore to indicate a proposition as most noteworthy to a speaker implies that
somemore cannot be used more than once by the speaker in the same utterance, a speaker
should not be able to use somemore consecutively in the same speech turn. A modification of
(22a) below illustrates this where stacking two somemore-propositions consecutively results
in infelicity.
(22) d. A: Buy some desserts from Orchard
A:
A: Some macaroons pls
B: # Eat the peanuts mummy bought la. Cannot find macaroons. {Somemore}
macaroons too sweet and expensive {somemore}. {Somemore} you on diet
{somemore}.
‘Eat the peanuts that Mummy bought instead. I can’t find the macaroons.
Moreover, they are too sweet and expensive. What’s more, you’re on a diet.’
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On the other hand, there is no such clear consensus whether the intuition that prejacent of
moreover is more significant or important exists with moreover. Although Wong (2018)
suggests/argues that moreover introduces a final supporting point that is more important than
the previously asserted statement, other studies describe moreover as an additive emphatic
word that not only adds new information to the text, but also implies that its prejacent should
be taken in conjunction with its antecedent (Liu, 2008).
Consider the constructed exchange in (22c) below, which is modelled after (22a) but with a
slightly more standard register:
(22) c. A: Could you buy some desserts from Orchard for me?
A: Perhaps some macaroons please.
B: Why don’t you eat the peanuts that Mummy bought instead? I can’t find
any macaroons nearby.
B: Moreover, they’re too sweet and expensive.
In this example, speakers who were consulted perceived no intuition that the second reason
(being too sweet and expensive) is any more important than the other reason listed, only that
it is a reason adding on to the antecedent.
However, in examples where the weight of significance in the reasons provided can be much
more easily distinguished, using the less significant proposition as the prejacent of somemore
will result infelicity. The following example features an antecedent and somemore-
proposition where the somemore-proposition is more obviously significant than the
antecedent:
43
(23) Context: A got a tongue piercing earlier that day. Both A and B knows that A’s
mother generally disapproves of A getting piercings.
B: Is your mom going to yell at you?
A: Nah, she knows that I went to pierce today. {Somemore} last night she even
offered to pay for part of it {somemore}.
‘Nah, she knows that I went to get it pierced today. Moreover, she offered to pay for
part of the costs last night.
Following the proposed structure from section 5.1, A’s response “Nah” raises an implicit
QUD, “Why should B believe that A’s mother won’t yell at A?” A answers the QUD with
two reasons: 1) A’s mother knows about it, 2) A’s mother offered to pay for part of the costs
of the piercing. In this example,
Considering the context of this conversation, one reason is clearly a more significant and
convincing reason answering why A’s mother won’t yell at A for the piercing: the fact that
A’s mother offered to pay for parts of the costs of piercing.
This is because the antecedent expresses a much less convincing reason supporting the point.
Given that A’s mother has a disapproval towards A piercing her tongue, the proposition that
A’s mother is aware of A’s intention to pierce her tongue that day does not automatically
mean that she will not scold A.
On the other hand, offering to contribute towards the costs of the piercing presents a much
clearer indication that A’s mother is okay with the piercing, since one usually wouldn’t pay
for something that they would get upset at.
44
This is supported by that if the antecedent and the somemore-proposition were switched
around, the utterance would be unacceptable.
(24) Context: A got a tongue piercing earlier that day. Both A and B knows that A’s
mother generally disapproves of A getting piercings.
B: Is your mom going to yell at you?
A: # Nah, last night she even offered to pay for part of it. {Somemore} she knows that
I went to pierce today {somemore}.
‘Nah, she offered to pay for part of the costs last night. Moreover, she knows that I
went to get it pierced today.
While the translation of A’s utterance with moreover is acceptable, A’s utterance itself is not.
This is because the distinctly less significant proposition is now attached to somemore, which
conflicts with the use of somemore to reflect its prejacent as more significant. On the other
hand, as mentioned, the use of moreover does not indicate any such intuition and hence is
acceptable in both examples.
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7.3 The motivation behind somemore
The fact that both moreover and somemore fulfil very similar functions raises the question of
why would somemore emerge if moreover and its various other alternatives could express the
same rhetorical relations between two propositions.
Perhaps the reason that stands out the most is in the difference in formalities between the
words. The use of moreover is confined mainly to formal, written discourse and hardly used
in casual conversation. The OED even describes it as a literary word characteristic of formal
discourse. As such, according to the native speakers consulted, it is often judged as weird or
inappropriate for use in casual settings, especially so with CSE.
Hence, the use of somemore is often preferred by native speakers in speech, as seen in (25)
where (25a) is judged as weird and was something the native speakers felt they would never
say.
(25) a. ? Too late to go out already la. Moreover starting to rain already.
b. Too late to go out already la. {Somemore} starting to rain already {somemore}
Furthermore, somemore enables the speaker to reflect their attitude towards the propositions
expressed and indicate which between the antecedent and the somemore-proposition is of
more significance to the speaker. On the other hand, moreover does not carry such an
intuition, would make it less effective as a device in convincing the interlocutor of the point
the speaker is making.
46
LIMITATIONS OF STUDY
Throughout this paper, I’ve taken the assumption that the meaning of the sentence-initial and
sentence-final somemore are exactly the same, with no difference in where one might be used
over the other, barring individual preferences. However, some native speakers whose
judgements I have consulted to during the course of this study have reported intuitions
reflecting differences in interpretation based on the position of somemore.
Below are several constructed examples that were shown to the native speakers:
(26) Q: Why did you decide to rent this place?
a. It’s cheap. Somemore the location good.
b. It’s cheap. The location good somemore.
(27) Q: Was it a good movie?
a. No, not really. The plot was horrible. Somemore the main character ended up
dying.
b. No, not really. The plot was horrible. The main character ended up dying
somemore.
In (26), the speakers who were consulted reported that there was no difference between the
sentence-initial or sentence-final version of the somemore-proposition. However, for (27),
some speakers reported that the sentence-initial (27a) version seemed more appropriate in the
event more reasons after the somemore-proposition were going to be listed, while the
sentence-final (27b) version seemed more appropriate if that was all the speaker had to say on
the issue. However, if a speaker mentioned (27b) and wanted to continue listing reasons after,
it was not judged as infelicitous or weird either.
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Hence, although the overall meaning of the assertion remains unchanged, there could be
subtle differences in meaning contributed by the position of somemore in a clause than was
assumed in this study.
Another potential issue to note is in the use of the QUD framework in formalising the
semantics of somemore. One criticism of the QUD framework is that it analyses
conversations after the fact, and many assumptions of what questions are being addressed are
being made, especially when the question is not overtly expressed. This is often the case with
dialogues in conversation, where much information is inferred and left implicit. This may be
problematic for the analysis as it is not always clear what the implicit question being
addressed it, and the assumed questions may not always be accurate.
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CONCLUSION
In this paper I have attempted to formalise the semantics of the CSE discourse particle
somemore using the QUD framework proposed by Roberts (2012). As the preceding
discussion has analysed the use of somemore on the level of discourse, somemore has been
regarded as a discourse marker for the purposes of this paper. The resulting analysis has
shown that somemore is an additive discourse marker that indicates the proposition it
expresses to be of significance to the speaker.
I proposed a structure that must be followed for the use of somemore to be felicitous in
conversation. There must first be an antecedent answering a QUD in the conversation that is
raised to support a point the speaker wants to make. Only with this antecedent can somemore
then answer the same QUD. By answering the QUD, it provides the hearer with an additional
reason to believe the point that the speaker is making.
Following that, I turned to moreover and compared the similarities and differences between
them and attempted to explain the motivations behind the emergence of somemore in CSE
despite the available alternatives in Standard English such as moreover. Somemore and
moreover are extremely similar in function and meaning, barring the different in formality
and domains of use. Somemore is an informal word used in casual situations, while moreover
is a formal, literary word. However, a closer comparison of the two showed that somemore
marks its prejacent as being more important than its antecedent, while no similar intuition
existed with moreover. Although the differences are subtle, I suggest that they are the
motivations for the emergence of somemore as it is able to not only express the rhetorical
relations that moreover does, but in informal situations while marking speaker attitudes.
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Lastly, in section 6, I discussed the limitations on the antecedent of somemore and argued
that in addition to answering a QUD, the antecedent must also be linguistic and be available
in the active context of the conversation to function as an antecedent to somemore.
As the linguistic landscape in Singapore continues to change with the prominence of Chinese
dialects decreasing and an increasingly anglicised population4 , regular words in Standard
English may adopt grammatical and pragmatic functions similar to other particles found in
the local languages of Singapore, resulting in new particles in CSE (Bao, 1995: 182). This
analysis hopes to provide a starting point to recording the results of the changing linguistic
landscape.
Future Research
Despite the plethora of research on the discourse particles of CSE, there are no other analyses
to date on the use of somemore in CSE. While I have suggested a possible motivation for the
use of somemore over the available alternatives in Standard English, it is yet unknown the
origins of somemore. Considering the linguistic environment of Singapore, there are several
potential languages from which somemore could have been motivated from, and further
research into the origin of somemore would provide an insight to how the changing
demographics of Singapore have impacted CSE. Moreover, as there is lesser research done
on discourse markers in CSE, the analysis on somemore as a CSE discourse marker could
motivate more in-depth studies into other discourse markers in CSE as well.
Finally, as this paper has relied on native speaker judgements for the acceptability of the
distance between the antecedent and somemore when analysing the limitations of the
antecedent of somemore, more controlled experiments could be conducted to formalise the
4 According to General Household survey 2015 released by The Department of Statistics Singapore, English has become the language spoken most often at home.
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point in conversation where an utterance exits the active context and enters the passive
context.
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